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Vietnamese Summer Rolls with Spicy Dipping Sauce
Peanut Sauced Glazed Chicken Pan Roast with Ginger, Garlic and Sesame
Super Crispy Sushi Rice
Roasted Cauliflower and Butternut Squash with Gochujang and Soy and Fresh Herbs
Extra Caramelized Rummy Bananas Foster with Vanilla Ice Cream
About the Class
This fall menu adapts recipes from both East and Southeast Asia: Vietnam, Thailand, Japan and Korea. The dishes are tasty-- overflowing with flavor but not too, too spicy.
I'm not a fan of Asian desserts. Instead I tend to follow meals like this one with something fruity and OTT if possible. Bananas Foster perfectly fits the bill. The fab combination of deeply caramelized bananas, dark rum, lots of rummy caramel sauce and rich vanilla ice cream is still a local specialty in New Orleans where it originated. If you're not familiar with Bananas Foster, you'll be blown away.
Do come to this class if you can. The menu is great but each dish is special on its own as well and will be a welcome addition to your repertoire. A tremendous amount of prepare-ahead (which I adore) is possible. Very little to do last minute.
The chicken with its luscious sauce is juicy, succulent and full-flavored, its richness cut just enough by an abundant shower of fresh cilantro, Thai basil and scallions. All that green along with a handful of toasted sesame seeds makes for a gorgeous presentation. The rice approximates traditional crispy sushi rice but its preparation is much simpler. Instead of portioning and frying, you cook seasoned rice in a skillet until it's golden and crisp on the bottom and then simply scoop it onto plates, crispy side up. The roasted veggies take no time to put together and are raised up many notches by generous amounts of gochuang and soy. The vegetables can be seasonally swapped out for others but whatever the veggies, the recipe is super easy and way better than the sum of the simple parts.
Last but not least, shrimp summer rolls, a favorite of almost everyone. These are the best version I know and the spicy dipping sauce on the side a delicious must-have — and the leftovers keep for several weeks and are good with almost anything.